Anyone with a song to sing or a story to tell is invited to join TAUNY this mud season for a series of Song & Story Swaps in the Adirondacks. Participants will be asked to share songs, stories, and poems in a manner reminiscent of traditional gatherings in parlors, kitchens, grange halls, and hotel and tavern barrooms. Within living memory, such occasions would have occurred nearly weekly in the Adirondacks.

With the swaps, TAUNY hopes to encourage participatory entertainment and music-making in the region. The events will be informal, and everyone is welcome to participate, including those who do not consider themselves to be “performers.”

The first swap will take place on Thursday, March 8, at BluSeed Studios  in Saranac Lake (click here for directions), and will feature Lee Knight . A Saranac Lake native who now makes his home in North Carolina, Knight has been a researcher and collector of traditional songs and stories of the Adirondacks and the Appalachians since his teenage years, and is an accomplished singer and multi-instrumentalist. He will perform on guitar, fretless banjo, dulcimer, Cherokee flute, and mouth bow. The theme of this evening will be Adirondack music and songs and stories learned from family and community.

The next event will take place on Friday, March 9, at the Lapland Lake Nordic Vacation Center in Benson (click here for directions). This swap will feature Ermina Pincombe , a lifelong Benson resident who was honored with a TAUNY North Country Heritage Award for her ongoing performances of traditional music on guitar, fiddle, banjo, and mandola. Dave Ruch, a celebrated musician, folk music researcher, educator, and part-time Adirondack resident, will perform with Pincombe. The evening’s theme will be the Adirondacks. Light fare, beer, and wine will be available for purchase at this event.

The final evening in the series will take place on Saturday, April 21, at the  Adirondack Folk School in Lake Luzerne (click here for directions). Brant Lake native Colleen Cleveland, also a North Country Heritage Award recipient, will host the event. Cleveland is known for carrying on her family’s tradition of singing ballads of Irish, Scottish, and English origins in the traditional unaccompanied style. The theme of this swap will be songs and stories learned from family and friends.

All Song & Story Swaps will take place from 7 to 8:30 p.m., and are free and open to the public. Everyone is welcome, whether or not they plan to share a song, story, or poem. With the permission of those present, material shared by those in attendance will be recorded, added to TAUNY’s archival collection, and edited for posting on TAUNY’s website.

Pre-registration is not required but is helpful for planning purposes. Please call TAUNY at (315) 386-4289 or email info@tauny.org for more information or to RSVP.

The Song & Story Swaps are possible thanks to generous underwriting from The Glenn and Carol Pearsall Adirondack Foundation, dedicated to improving the quality of life for year-round residents of the Adirondack Park (www.pearsallfoundation.org).

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